


Curiosity killed the cat...

by Winga



Series: Seriously, soulmates? [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M, soulmate watch
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-04
Updated: 2014-03-04
Packaged: 2018-01-14 13:52:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,951
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1268791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Winga/pseuds/Winga
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He would have thrown it away, if it wasn't for curiosity (and Mummy, but he tries to pretend she didn't have such an influence on him on this thing).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curiosity killed the cat...

**Author's Note:**

> So I remembered my love for writing and this series and apparently this is going to be such a mix of things and not chronological really?  
> Also completely unbeta'd, all mistakes mine, please point them out?

The beginning was when Sherlock saw his watch and ignored it.

He would have thrown it away, if it wasn't for curiosity (and Mummy, but he tries to pretend she didn't have such an influence on him on this thing). He remembers the numbers, slowly going down, has memorised them even without having to look at it anymore (but he does, every once in a while, expecting them to change).

His childhood goes on slowly, he annoys his parents when he can, he loves his brother dearly, waiting for him to come home, and corrects his teachers to call him Sherlock instead of William from the first day at school. He never admits to Mycroft that he adores him. He never says a thing to his parents about how glad he is that they call him Sherlock instead of William (there's a William in his class for the first few years and Sherlock learns hate from him, because William picks on him and picks fights with him).

He keeps his distance from the other kids, except for when he realises that some of them have extensive knowledge on things that he doesn't, and then he asks them to tell him everything. (In the future, he'll never admit to knowing a lot about dinosaurs, but there's a room for them.)

And then comes his fifteenth birthday. He'd asked his parents not to take him get his watch, and for a few years they'd agreed. But it was his curiousity that got him into this, now, his want to know what it is that makes all the other teens so cheerful about their watches. And maybe it's a bit because Mycroft has his watch, has had it for years, and has never uttered a word about it to Sherlock (which annoys him, and they both know it).

His watch gives a date, a couple years from now, some year or two into university and he frowns, wondering how it could happen so fast. He doesn't understand love, never really has, and he doesn't know if it was a wise move to even get the watch.

He puts the watch away and glances at it maybe once a month, tries to limit it to less. But he can't help it, being curious, still needing to know why others put so much weight on the watch.

He's curious about most things and his mother says that it's only good, and that he should be interested in things, maybe solve things with his brains, ask the others what they wait from their potential soulmate. (She doesn't tell him that the watch doesn't always get it right, that sometimes people will fake it, that sometimes your feelings just change. She doesn't tell him that his father was her third mate and she was his second.)

Beginning university, he thinks, hopes, that he won't turn into his brother, who is already deep in politics, deeply concerning himself with everything and making his way up ranks. Soon he'll be sitting somewhere, ordering everyone around and doing none of the legwork himself. Sherlock wishes he'll be nothing of the sort, that he'll still be allowed experimentation, albeit a bit different kinds of than at home. Maybe more interesting, he hopes, and his hopes vanish when he realises that to accomplish that, he'd have to spend more time with the other students and the teachers who still tell him that he's not careful enough to be left by himself.

He makes Mycroft get him a small apartment where he can experiment, so he doesn't have to stay with other people, and Mycroft does. Without a note of worry, too, and Sherlock suspects he's being spied upon and destroys the bugs he finds. Mycroft sends him an email, and he smiles because Mycroft is annoyed.

Forgetting his watch, he thrives, tries to best others and correct the teachers on where he knows they are wrong. He prooves them wrong, too, because he detests false information and some of the teachers see the potential in him, some send him off and kick him off their courses and Mycroft sends him emails. Sends the school too, apologies on his behalf and he doesn't care.

When he does look at his watch, he sees it's only a days wait for him to find his soulmate, and he starts keeping the watch in his pocket, just to check if he's any closer to finding whomever the watch chooses. He wants to see, and to prove it wrong or right, to write a thesis on the watch, and that has been brought on by people he has met.

(There was a girl, young woman, in the cafeteria who met her soulmate, and it happened to be a guy and she just laughed at the situation, whispering ”I'm gay, so I guess our soulmateness is based on friendship” and Sherlock can't forget it, because his look was so devastated but soon he got over it, smiled, nodded, and exchanged numbers.

Sherlock wants to find out if this happens more often around him, but it's rude to ask people their times. He doesn't understand why.)

He follows other people with his eyes, to see if there's anyone who might be jumpy, someone he hasn't met before and when nothing happens, he starts an experiment on the watch, to see if it can be broken.

It can. Easily. But the time is still running out and Mycroft gives him a call, says ”you'll get a new watch tomorrow. I kind of assumed this would have happened before.” Which means he doesn't know about the date. Respects Sherlock's privacy on the matter.

Sherlock huffs, hangs up and throws the watch away, wondering if there's a trigger on it that it may have been broken. Quite likely, seeing some people find soulmates who aren't going to fall in love with them. The anger people have on these matters is such an interesting thing to him.

The new watch has the same time as he'd assumed and he doesn't try to break it, wondering if Mycroft has some assumptions as to why he broke his watch that he would never tell him. Sherlock shakes the thought away and goes on about his day as per usual; goes to classes, tries not to look at most of the people because he's been in same classes with them for long enough to know all about them that he wants to know, plays the know-it-all with Sebastian (who isn't as stupid as he seems, but who is using him, Sherlock knows it but couldn't care less).

And the day comes, the hour comes, and there's a dog biting his leg. He curses as the owner comes closer and calls the dog off and when Sherlock turns to look, he hears the telling ring. ”Oh,” he whispers and the stranger blinks at him.

He's not in love, of course not, because he doesn't even believe in love at first sight, but he can see how this could be something more than just a casual acquaintance.

”I'm sorry for him, Baxter just got wild,” the stranger says, extending his hand. ”I'm Victor and apparently we have something in common.”

Sherlock shakes his hand with a nod and ”Sherlock Holmes at your service.”

Victor grins and invites him for ice cream. He can't find it in himself to say no, really.

They get to know each other a bit better, spending more time at Sherlock's apartment when they don't have school, because Victor's living with his younger brother, and neither of them are sure how it would be taken. Or both of them know, but Victor doesn't want to say it and Sherlock, for all his deductions, doesn't want to voice out loud the deduction that would break everything. But they know that Victor's father wouldn't approve, no matter what the watch told. Some people still live without caring about them, but even parents can't stop their child from getting their watch if they so want.

Suddenly, a month has passed and Sherlock notices that he's glared at less than he used to be at school. Stared at more, for his attitude has changed from venomous into not caring about the people he has to spend his time with. He still corrects the teachers, of course, but he pays close to no attention to everyone else, because if he did, he knows he might finally get annoyed enough to get expelled, and even Mycroft wouldn't be able to help. And he doesn't want that. Doesn't want to be expelled because he accidentally poured acid on someone.

Not that he ever has. Just a rumour.

But soon it's spring and running towards summer and Victor invites him over to their house for a month. They both know there'll be a part to play, of friendship and nothing else, no heated kisses into what they have changed already. No passionate looks at each other.

No drugs for Sherlock, for that is how he describes Victor by now.

Sherlock has hidden his watch, wondering why anyone keeps it if they can just find someone to stay with and then he's reminded of the boy who fast fell for the lesbian and he hopes that he can keep Victor to himself for as long as possible.

But that is for right now, he thinks, packing his things and following Victor to the car that's arrived for them.

Everything goes well, until a week into his staying at Victor's parents. They suspect, he knows, but they can't say anything. Victor told Sherlock, earlier, that he'd never told his parents the date and they'd been so angry, tried to get his brother to find it out, but he never had, or so they assumed.

But a week in, and Victor's brother, devoted to him, blurts out: ”The day passed.”

And the rage is silent, the kind that swallows you whole.

”The day passed and Sherlock's the only new person I've met.” And he's smiling, because he thinks it's great. Oh, he's 16, he's a romantic, more so than either Victor or Sherlock, and he assumes that love is the only thing that is important.

Sherlock wants to run, because he has read Victor's parents and he knows they will take Victor away from him. Sherlock wants to take Victor with him and he wonders where this all is coming from because he used to not care at all.

Victor tries a weak smile but they know it's broken.

Mycroft calls two days later and Sherlock answers, saying nothing because what could he say? He feels empty, he's already back at London in his flat because he'd been driven away and Victor had been taken somewhere else. Mycroft sighs, says: ”Do you want me to find him for you?”

And Sherlock says: ”Yes,” even though he knows that the other thing Victor never said out loud was that when it came to it, he would want to produce a heir. That even though there's love now, he'd leave some day, so Sherlock wouldn't read too much into soulmates. ”No. Don't,” he says after a moment.

He hangs up and begins writing his thesis on soulmate watches. A thesis he will not publish yet, because there's not enough data and because he wants to empty his head. He'd consider alcohol but that's low, but he remembers Sebastian and remembers how he once said that anything is easy to find even in a closed school. Remembers how the others seemed when they were high.

And he runs into it, face first, without a care in the world, the watch hidden but blinking with new numbers he doesn't know.


End file.
